Pagan Musings From A Pagan Person

There are a lot of different paths in this spirituality we call Paganism.  You can be Druid,  Wiccan, Asatru, Hellenistic, or just a good old-fashioned kitchen Witch.  No matter what you call yourself, we’ve all got common threads that bring us together. However, in recent years, some factions have been taking the differences and using them as tools to attack and denigrate each other.  My take on this is, if no one has broken any laws, then what the hell?  Everyone does stuff, and not everyone is going to agree.  Here in my area, we have a standing policy of “agreeing to disagree.”  It doesn’t mean I condone everyone’s actions or will just stand idly by if I do see someone breaking the law or doing something unethical.  It just means we don’t attack different ideals. Paganism does tend to draw strong personalities.   You can go to any festival and see it for yourself!   Women in long, flowing dresses and tons of jewelry, men with poet’s ...

  Have you ever gone to an event and felt a sense of “ick” from an individual, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on why?  This is something that happens more often than we care to say, because as a Pagan, I know I want to be able to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but I have also learned to trust my intuition. It is an unfortunate truth that our spirituality can attract less-than-savory characters due to our acceptance of people overall.  I personally try to meet people where they are and accept what they say about themselves without forcing anyone to fit into my own narrative.  It works well, unless they show me otherwise.  Actions do indeed speak louder than words, and no amount of explanation or song and dance routine will make me think a bad person is anything more than a bad person. About thirty years ago, there was an individual in our town who presented themselves as a grand and wise wizard who was willing to teach, but in order to “transfer ...

 Tonight, I'm helping to host a somewhat late celebration of Spring Equinox.  One of my coven mates was asked why we didn't celebrate on the actual equinox.  This year, it landed on a Tuesday, with the time being after ten p.m.  Well....as much as we would love to be able to host ceremonies and rituals on the exact day (and maybe even the exact time), reality is we all have mundane lives, and many of us work regular 9-to-5 type jobs.  We don't have full-time clergy who only work for the Pagan community (unless they've retired from that 9-to-5 job). So we try to schedule events at a time when the most people can make it out.  Saturdays are often good, but because the weather is starting to warm up, a LOT of events are being scheduled for weekends.  We've been experimenting with earlier, midweek times, and so far, it hasn't been awful. Of course, I do try to teach people that in the end, we are all really simply solitary Pagans and Witches who choose to ...

 In the Pagan community, we seem to have more than our fair share of predators and narcissists.  I'll be posting my own essay soon, but in the meantime, here's a good article about the kind of people we really need to be avoiding: What Is Spiritual Narcissism? More soon!